


a creature made of salt and blood

by IamShadow21



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Dubious Consentacles, Fanboy Phil Coulson, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Getting Together, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Minor Violence, Mostly Gen, No Tentacle Sex, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Not As Dark As The Tags Make It Sound, Panic Attacks, Pheels, Phil Coulson Needs a Hug, Poisoning, Post-Iron Man 3, Pre-Slash, Tentacles, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-12 07:23:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't until Clint fails to even crack a smile that Phil starts to worry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a creature made of salt and blood

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Dubious Consentacles Challenge on [marvelthrowdown](http://marvelthrowdown.tumblr.com), where it placed third. However, because my brain can't help but subvert tropes even when it's not required, this story doesn't contain any sexual content. 
> 
> For those who need to know these things ahead of time, check out the end notes for the circumstances of the dubious consentacles. I have tried to inform about the actual events without being too spoilery. As always, it is you, the reader, making the choice to read. If the end notes describe something you will not be comfortable reading, the agency falls on you to hit the back button.

“A bird may love a fish, but where would they build a home together?”  
\- _Tevye, Fiddler on the Roof (Joseph Stein)_

 

Getting kidnapped is never fun. Getting kidnapped by Hydra tends to be a whole different world of pain that Phil wasn't in a hurry to reacquaint himself with. 

He really isn't sure how long they have him for. Between the drugs and the torture and the experimental technology, Phil spends his imprisonment bobbing around like a cork in a nightmarish ocean until distant shouting and explosions herald an unsubtle rescue party.

“You're gonna wish you never even _thought_ of touching me,” Phil slurs.

“You really think you're _that_ important?” the main guy sneers, the one that Phil knows is going to die slowly.

“Oh, I'm not important at all,” Phil says. “They just don't like anyone messing with their toys.”

The guy doesn't die slowly after all, but quick and clean with an arrow through the eye. He drops and reveals Clint standing in the doorway, looking grim and dirty and utterly frightened in an almost child-like way that Phil has only seen a handful of times in the years they're known each other.

“Gonna get you out of there, sir,” he says.

“Good, because I'm pretty sure my fingers are all pruney by now,” Phil drawls. 

It isn't until Clint fails to even crack a smile that he starts to worry.

*

Getting out of the restraints and then out of the tank is awkward and uncomfortable. The heaviness of his own body is enough to make Phil's knees buckle underneath him. He feels top-heavy and clumsy, and bites down on a impulse to tell his rescuers to just throw him back in. They wrap him in a towel and half-carry him through corridors and up staircases littered with bodies and rubble and lit hellish red.

By the time they get him to the evac point, his back is on fire, and he can't keep in the tiny sounds of pain. Clint's arm is a brand of desert heat around his waist that he can't escape because without it he'd fall into the dirt and dry up completely.

He's never liked being tranqed, particularly on the back of an indeterminate amount of time addled by torture and drugs, but the wash of sleepiness as the sedative takes hold makes the helicopter's initial swoop into the air and away feel like gravity has given way all together, and he floats off into unconsciousness with a giddy sense of relief.

*

Hours later, he comes to, lying in a puddle. It's a puddle within what looks like an inflatable wading pool, but it's far from the clean, starched sheets and ineffective woven blankets that every hospital around the globe seems to use that he was hoping for after being rescued. He'd be pissed if the water didn't feel so soothing, like aloe on a bad sunburn.

Clint is nearby, sitting on the floor. His back is against the wall, his legs outstretched and his mouth half-open as he sleeps. It's not the first time exhaustion has swept in and overwhelmed him during one of his post-rescue vigils, and, knowing their line of work, it won't be the last. 

A nurse bustles in with a clipboard and latex gloves on, and kneels down beside his water bed with a little effort. 

“I just have to check on your, um, appendages. Make sure we've got the salinity right, now,” she says.

Phil thinks for a few, confused moments that she's being euphemistic about something, until she dips a hand into the water and pulls out the end of what looks very much like a tentacle. Her fingers are warm and firm and Phil bites down on his terror hard while she pokes and scrapes off a layer of some kind of slime and moves on to the _next_ one until by Phil's count she's documented no fewer than four tentacles which appear to be attached to his body and have sensation and if Phil really focusses he can make one twitch a bit and curl on command, but it's an effort to concentrate that hard when he's freaking the fuck out.

“It all looks good,” says the nurse with professional satisfaction, and bustles out of the room.

Clint's watching him with a gaze would be described as lazy by anyone who didn't know him as well as Phil does. There's nothing casual about it. It's that still place Clint sits in when he's assessing a situation, calculating angles, lining up a perfect shot. People get so distracted by Clint's recklessness and impulsiveness and penchant for injury-by-jumping-and-or-falling that they forget that Clint is a sniper, that he can wait for days on a perch until exactly the right moment arrives.

“So was I meant to be a mascot, or a weapon?” Phil asks, when the urge to scream has died down to a simmer. His voice is rough and cracked, a brittle mimicry of his usual cool tone.

“We don't know yet,” Clint says. “Still not certain how they did it, exactly. The doctors checked you over, when you were out. There aren't any obvious surgical scars, but if they were using something Tesseract-enhanced, there might not have been any to find.”

“I don't remember surgery,” Phil says. “I think I would have. They didn't bother to anaesthetise me. There was a machine. They put me in front of it. Made me feel like my skin was going to burst.” A tiny, hysterical giggle bubbles from his lips. “I guess I know why.”

“Big thing, bright, glowing tubes all down the sides?”

“Yeah.”

“Stark and Banner are looking over it. They think it might've been something to do with DNA manipulation and splicing. Injections plus radiation. Like the super soldier program, but more...squiddy.”

The past tense isn't lost on Phil. “'Might have been?'”

Clint winces. “It kinda got a bit exploded. There's not a lot left.”

Phil doesn't ask how or who. Clint's face is a study in guilt. It's tempting to say _it's okay_ or _it's fine_ or _it doesn't matter_ , but it'd be an outright lie and Phil's too tired to sell it. The truth is, the only thing that might have helped solve what those bastards did to him is in a handful of charred pieces, and he is _monumentally angry_ about it.

Fortunately, that's the moment when Fury marches into the room and looms over Phil in his paddling pool of sea water. “So, just to make it clear, you're benched,” he begins.

“ _No shit_ ,” Phil snarls, because unlike Clint, Fury's the embodiment of a safe target.

*

It isn't as simple as Phil just changing positions to being SHIELD's ambassador to Atlantis. Phil can't be out of water for longer than a few minutes without the skin on his new tentacles drying out painfully, but he can't breathe in water, either. He's got no semblance of gills. His lungs are regular oxygen-needing lungs, without even increased capacity for holding his breath. Maybe Hydra were going to get to fixing that next. 

Or, maybe, they just had a new toy, and wanted to see what his body could endure before it gave out altogether.

Phil's pretty sure that even if the machine was still intact, reversing the tentacling would be just as bad if not worse than getting them in the first place. He mentions surgically removing them a total of once to the doctor who checks in from time to time.

“That's... a pretty drastic option,” she says. “There's a lot of subcutaneous involvement of muscles and blood vessels. The skin grafts alone would be extensive, and incredibly painful.”

“More painful than the pain I get when I don't lie in six inches of salt water all day except for bathroom breaks?” he asks.

“Yes,” she replies, and that is that.

*

Stark's first solution looks like the product of a fish tank and a backpack having a very special hug. There's a membrane for Phil's tentacles to poke through into the water. Because it's Stark, the thing is lit from within and transparent, so when Phil looks at himself side-on in the mirror, he can see the tentacles as he flexes and curls them in their perspex and water cocoon. 

As a Hallowe'en costume, it's amazing. As life for the foreseeable future, it still kind of sucks.

It's heavy, but not as heavy as the kit he'd carried in the military. Unlike the kit, however, the water sloshes around and throws his balance off, something he discovers when he takes advantage of his freedom from the pool and goes for a wander up and down the hallways. He slows down and speeds up and walks with his feet further apart and closer together, trying to find a gait that reduces the sloshing but allows him to move faster than a slow tiptoe.

“Verdict?” Stark asks, from where he's leaning against the wall. He looks like he's barely paying attention, fiddling with his phone, but Phil has no doubt the Tankpack is full of all kinds of sensors giving live feedback that Stark is scrolling through as he speaks.

“Better than lying in a puddle all day, not good enough for field work,” Phil replies.

He's expecting a laugh or a joke or at least a _look_ from Stark about how utterly ridiculous the idea of Phil doing field work whilst being at least twenty percent cephalopod is, but Stark just nods and types something into his phone.

“Gimme a few days,” Stark mumbles, before wandering away.

*

Two days later, Stark turns up with Clint and a fist full of medical release forms.

“They've done everything they need to do. For the last week, they've just been poking you with things because you're still here. I've got a jacuzzi that's been converted for salt water, and about a million years' worth of reality TV with your name on it,” Stark says.

“He's right, sir. They're not giving us anything useful, and Doctor Banner can do exactly the same monitoring they've been doing at the Tower,” Clint confirms.

By this point, Phil's just about reached his tolerance levels for hospital food and the amount of strangers who've seen his chest hair.

“Admit it, you just want me on-site so that _you_ can poke and prod me,” Phil sighs.

“Guilty as charged,” Stark says unrepentantly.

“Always,” Clint says straight-faced.

“I'm not setting a foot out of the door without a shirt,” Phil says.

If either of his rescuers had even _thought_ of going near his dress shirts with a pair of scissors, blood would have been spilt, but fortunately, he doesn't have to resort to violence. In the end, it's a T-shirt that's been hacked at with scissors until it's practically a halter-neck, but it's comforting to Phil's dented modesty, and it doesn't get in the way of the Tankpack.

Stark sheds his own jacket to throw over the Tankpack, hiding it from prying eyes when they slip from the military hospital doors into the limo. There's no way for Phil to sit in the seats with the bulk of it behind him so he shrugs and sits on the floor. 

The walk from the ward down to the limo obviously took more out of him than he thought, because the car's been stop-starting through the New York traffic for only a short time before his eyes are drooping.

“You right to take watch, Hawkeye?” Phil asks.

“I've got you covered, sir,” Clint replies, and a moment later, he guides Phil's head over to lean against the firm cushion of his thigh.

Phil doesn't sleep, but he closes his eyes and lets himself relax and drift for the first time in what feels like forever.

*

Stark Tower is a vast improvement on the hospital, but he still chafes at his restricted movements. The jacuzzi is indeed large and comfortable and perfect for lounging in, but it's also on a balcony attached to the common Avengers area, rather than in a personal suite. Stark assured him that he'd install one for him somewhere a little less public, but then he disappeared down into his workshop, where, according to JARVIS, he's been working for two days solid with occasional unintentional power naps face-down on his desk. JARVIS even showed Phil a still of Stark sprawled out and drooling on some probably-important paperwork. Phil thinks that when even the computer is trying to cheer him up, he must look pretty miserable.

It's not that being at Stark Tower is bad. It'd be lovely, were it a holiday of his own choosing. The food is excellent. The television is enormous and responds to voice commands. The view is spectacular, second only to the one from the Helicarrier bridge. There's a bar right next to the jacuzzi that he can easily reach and mix himself a drink from, and the booze inside is all obscenely high quality. But under the tinsel, it feels like the same kind of trap as the hospital. In a perverse way, even being held by Hydra didn't feel as much of a prison. At least then, he knew someone was coming for him, alive or dead. He can't even do paperwork to kill the time.

“Waterproof computer,” Stark had said, before entering his science blackout mode. “I'd say it's a ridiculous oversight for me, but to be honest, I'm not a big fan of putting my head underwater these days, so I haven't been in a tub or a pool in years. And if I'm in the shower, I tend to have my hands busy, so I dictate to JARVIS.”

Pretty much all the glass surfaces in the upper floors of the Tower are active link touch and display screens into JARVIS and the main bank of supercomputers anyway, but Phil would at least like to try and keep up the pretence that his SHIELD files are confidential, and accessing them through JARVIS himself would defeat that purpose entirely. At least with a separate device, he can have plausible deniability if Stark decides to piggyback his connection and rummage around in Nick Fury's personal email account for shits and giggles.

It doesn't help his restless mood that both Clint and Natasha are somewhere else right now, doing things he's not allowed to know about, officially, because he's benched. All his usual, dreadful, comfort television has turned grating, so he's tuned it to something about antiques and is idly playing a game where he guesses the value of anything, whether it's memorabilia from his particular interests or not. He's not half-bad. Maybe he could set up an appraising business at Sea World.

“I know that look,” Steve says, eyeing him shrewdly.

Because that's another nightmarish bonus of Stark Tower, having his childhood hero seeing him like this; maudlin, half dressed and tentacley.

“Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?” Phil asks, because he's bitchy about his situation, but he's also a nerd, and he knows Steve appreciates pop-culture references he can understand.

Steve laughs, and his eyes sparkle a bit with it, so Phil knows it's genuine. “Not exactly what I meant. You've got the look of a man on leave, without the freedom of leave. I'd ask if you wanted to spar, but your tub's a bit small for it.”

Phil can feel his cheeks heat a little at the thought, because, wow, what a thought that is. And then he coughs and tries to stop thinking about it, because the pool isn't opaque. “Would you like a drink?” Phil offers. “It's top-shelf, but Stark's good for it.”

“Sure, why not?” Steve asks. 

Phil busies himself with scooping out ice and pouring scotch and thinking calming thoughts about antiques. Steve rolls up his khakis to his knees and sits on the edge of the jacuzzi, his feet kicking lazily back and forth through the brine. “You can get in, if you like,” Phil says shyly. “Plenty of room.”

Steve hesitates. “You sure? Seems kinda...”

“Intimate?” Phil asks, because he might as well go there first.

“I was going to say intrusive. Figured you might want a buffer.”

Phil sighs. “Yes and no. I've barely had any privacy since I was taken, but I also haven't had much human contact outside a laboratory setting. The only people that want to be near me want to stick me with needles.”

Steve nods, stands, and strips down to navy boxer-briefs with military efficiency in a matter of moments. Phil takes it as a measure of his own fortitude that he doesn't drop both glasses. Instead, he holds them firm and steady until Steve has slid into the water, and doesn't fumble when he passes Steve's over to him.

“Cheers,” Steve says, and they clink glasses and drink.

“I didn't think the Commandos had much in the way of downtime,” Phil says, because he can't help but want to dig into Steve's history, just a little.

“We really didn't, so whenever we had a few days off, we made it count,” Steve says, his smile just a little naughty. 

“Get up to much? Or are your exploits still classified?”

“Well, you know soldiers,” Steve says. “It's all drinking, fighting and... dancing,” he finishes, a high flush blooming across his cheeks and the tips of his ears to betray the truth.

“If you believe the hype, Captain America wasn't the sort for dancing,” Phil says teasingly.

“Not much. Didn't get many chances... before, and by the time I had the Serum, I'd decided I was waiting for the right partner. So I wasn't really tom-catting around town, but it'd be a stretch to say I'd _never_...” Steve coughs a little, swallows down some more of his drink. “Bucky was the dancer. Every night a different girl. He was shameless, but girls'd see his dimples and think he was as sweet as sugar. He'd come home later, all starry-eyed, and talk me through the steps. ”

Steve's blush is more pervasive this time.

“You didn't get jealous?” Phil asks, genuinely curious.

“No, not truly. He never told me to be cruel, he just thought what was his was mine, like the food, and the rent, and the bed when we couldn't afford to heat the apartment. It was a gift.” Steve drinks the last dregs. “I miss him like crazy.”

“I'd say it gets easier, but it doesn't really,” Phil sighs. “You just get used to living with their ghosts.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, setting his glass aside. He squints at the screen. “Hey, my mom had one of those. Cost about a dollar. Piece of junk.”

“Brace yourself, then, because the expert's about to give that guy five figures for it,” Phil says, and he's right.

Steve looks stricken. “Bucky and I broke it up and burned it in the winter of '39 when we ran out of coal.”

“Good riddance. It's hideous,” Phil says emphatically. “You need a refill?”

“I think I do,” Steve says faintly.

*

Stark emerges from his science cave with a working prototype tablet computer that, according to him, Phil could take in the ocean to the same depth as his wristwatch without any problem. (Phil kindly doesn't mention that his wristwatch has been modded by SHIELD to withstand pretty much anything. Stark will just steal it and try and go one better and probably break it and get distracted before he fixes it.)

Stark rambles for a while about the Mark Two Tankpack in an increasingly incoherent manner until Pepper turns up and guides him away like a child up way past his bedtime. Phil doesn't expect to see him for a day at least, which probably means he'll sleep for a maximum of twelve hours before he's bouncing around the workshop again, powered by nothing but coffee and his own genius. 

The tablet is pretty cool, he has to admit.

When Phil logs in to his email for the first time since his capture, his inbox has at least half a dozen spam messages offering to give him a longer, stronger member. He gives the tentacles curling in the water the side-eye, and deletes every single email with extreme prejudice.

*

The close proximity of the bar is a slippery slope. It doesn't help that ninety-five percent of television is garbage. Boredom plus alcohol plus TV leads inevitably to some kind of drinking game. Phil's also discovered that he finds it easier to experiment with his new limbs through the haze of a drink or three, so he watches and drinks and learns how to hold things and pass them from tentacle to tentacle and from tentacle to hand and back without spilling them or dropping them into the tub.

Of course, that means that when Clint gets back from Fury-knows-where, Phil's trashed in a jacuzzi at one in the afternoon. Clint has a black eye and a tentative expression and a little rubber duckie in Cap's uniform that he sets down gently on the surface of the water.

“I missed you,” Phil says, because his filters are shot to shit.

Something too complicated for Phil to follow plays out across Clint's face. “I missed you, too, sir,” he says softly.

“I always... I imagined. I thought, maybe. When we slowed down, got older,” Phil rambles. He feels a tear slide down his cheek.

Clint's hand is suddenly there, wiping it away. “Still can,” he says. “Gonna fix this.”

Clint sounds so sure, so _certain_. 

“You don't know that,” Phil grits out.

“I do. Got the smartest brains in the world working on this. Just you wait and see.”

Phil doesn't remember moving. He must have done, because he's not in the tub any more. He's standing on the decking, pinning Clint up against the granite of a supporting pillar. His arm is across Clint's throat, and he can feel his teeth bared in a snarl of rage.

“Fix me? They don't have the slightest clue where to even _begin_ fixing me because the men that did this to me are dead and the machine they did it with is a pile of slag because _someone shot it with an exploding arrow._ ”

Clint swallows under the weight of his arm; Phil feels his Adam's apple bobble under the skin. He lets his tentacles wind around the thickest part of Clint's biceps, the bit that's always looked the most biteable, lets them squeeze him a little tight. Clint sucks in a breath.

“You shouldn't have come for me at all. Should have left me there,” Phil says, almost believing it. 

Clint is pale; his pupils wide and black. “I'll always come for you. Like you always come for me.”

“You gave me _hope_ ,” Phil spits.

Clint's breath is coming in little gasps now. Phil can feel every puff of it across his own lips, every quiver of his body through all the places they're touching.

“I'm sorry,” Clint says, and Phil lets his eyes close, lets his head droop forward until his forehead is against Clint's own. “I'm truly sorry, sir. Phil. But you... you have to... let me go,” he says, his voice a thread of sound. 

In the background, Phil can hear the thunder of approaching footsteps. There's a woosh of bootjets, and suddenly Stark is hovering to the side, repulsors at the ready, saying, “Let's break it up, boys,” in the most neutral, non-combative tone Phil's ever heard him use.

“Okay,” Phil says, and loosens his hold, moving back and away. “Okay.”

There might have been a more organised fall-out with talking and yelling and side-taking, had not Clint fallen over a moment later and stopped breathing all together.

*

As 'ways to find out his tentacles secrete a paralytic when he's stressed' go, nearly killing Clint by accident ranks right up the top of a list of incredibly horrible potential possibilities that Phil only just realised was necessary. While other people are being useful and performing rescue breaths and racing to the elevator to get the standard poison antidote kit that Bruce has in his lab because, well, _science_ , Phil is having a quiet and very undignified breakdown.

“It's a panic attack, I get them, they suck, but you're not actually dying, it just feels like you are,” Stark says. 

He's got the faceplate up, but he's still in the suit, and his metal hand feels like a vice clamped on the back of Phil's head, holding it down between Phil's knees while Phil sucks in air. “You gonna pass out on me, Agent?” he asks, sounding more curious than concerned. When Phil gives a quick shake of his head, Stark continues. “Good. So. Far be it for me to talk about responsible consumption and all, but I'm cutting you off. This is an intervention. No more Jerry Springer.”

Phil lets out a mangled sob.

“Look, he's fine, see?” Stark's grip eases, and Phil turns his head a little, enough to see Clint lying on the deck. Clint's looking right at Phil, and when he catches Phil's gaze, his hand twitches up in a little wave. “He's fine, and you're gonna be fine. You're gonna breathe for another minute, then I'm putting you back in the tub so you don't dry out, and you're going to sober up. All right? Good.”

By the time Stark carries him over and lifts him back into the water, Clint is standing on unsteady legs, being helped inside to the sofa by Steve. Phil watches as Bruce checks Clint over thoroughly, takes a blood sample, and swabs the skin on Clint's arms where Phil had held him. Steve brings Clint what Phil is willing to bet is a mug of warm, over-sweet tea, and Clint takes it and lets it heat his hands even though Phil knows Clint will only drink tea if there is nothing else on offer or politeness demands it.

“Your turn,” Bruce says mildly. “And just in case you're lining up an argument, there's no possible way you can poison me, and, trust me, I've hurt people around me far worse with my anger than you just did with yours. Ready?” he says, holding up a needle.

Phil nods. “Ready.” 

He doesn't take his eyes off Clint, who's still holding that stupid mug of tea. A couple of minutes later, Steve brings Phil one of his own. He drinks it.

*

“So, I ditched the tank idea altogether. I mean, I'll probably still finish it, because it's _awesome_ , but this is way more practical, and it has the added bonus of making you cuddle-safe. C'mon, Agent, rise from the deep. It's dress-up time.”

The dark bruises encircling Clint's arms have started going green around the edges. Phil's bar has had nothing in it but soda and the fixings for Shirley Temples for four days. Stark has an armful of black neoprene, a determined expression, and a small bucket of what looks suspiciously like lube.

“Cuddle-safe?” asks Phil scathingly.

“You know, for your sad-sack of an archer, the guy who's currently turning every target on the private range downstairs into porcupines.”

“We're not-”

“God, _whatever._ Fuck, don't fuck, like I give a crap. Just try on your damn tentacle condom vest first.”

*

“Well, that's new,” Clint says looking at Phil's custom fashion item. “Comfortable?”

“Restrictive,” Phil says. “Coated neoprene with a saline gel medium. I'll get used to it.” He fans the tentacles out deliberately. “Advantages being, it's flexible enough to move in it, and it's not a damn aquarium, so I can sleep in an actual bed again. I'm tempted to go to bed right now, just because I can.”

Clint's eyelids dip in a slow blink, and he bites his lip. “Want company?” he asks.

“I'd like that,” Phil replies.

*

“Stark offered me a job,” Phil says.

Clint moves his head from where he's been lying on Phil's chest to look at him.

“He knows I'm bored, and he's rebuilding the house in Malibu. He wants someone he trusts on-site to put the fear of... well, _him_ , into the contractors.”

“Sounds like a milk run. 'Specially since you've got these,” Clint says, stroking the clothed tentacle closest him. “Brush up on your Lovecraft and they won't stand a chance.”

“I want you to come with me,” Phil says. 

“What?”

“It's a huge house, plenty of space, private beach. You never take voluntary downtime, so I know exactly how much leave SHIELD owes you.”

“Is there a threat?” Clint asks. 

“No, nothing like that,” Phil assures him.

“Then why?” There's genuine confusion in Clint's expression.

“Because I want whatever this is so much it scares me, and I didn't realise just how much until I thought it wasn't an option any more,” Phil says, letting his hands and the odd tentacle or two drift over Clint's skin just because he's there, and Phil's allowed to, now. “I think getting away for a bit, learning what it is that we want from each other in a neutral setting, might actually mean this works, rather than turning into a train-wreck of epic proportions.”

Clint looks a little stunned, but he's smiling at last, and he leans in for a kiss. “In that case, yes,” he says against Phil's mouth. “Yes.”

“You just want to have sex in every room of Stark's new mansion before he does,” Phil teases, when they pause for breath.

“Absolutely not the reason,” Clint says. “That's just a fabulous perk.”

**Author's Note:**

> The dubious consentacles in question are related to non-sexual physical contact with overtones of violence, but not actual intentional harm, and no real intent to harm. Alcohol intoxication is a significant factor. A character has a panic attack after the event. Everyone is sorry afterwards, but there is no blaming or shaming of either party by anyone.


End file.
